How can your location managers go from good to great?

Posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2012

This Empathica whitepaper, entitled “Location Engagement Doesn’t Come from Reading Reports” explores the impact that locations and location managers can have in delivering great customer experiences. The following article is an excerpt – the third section of the whitepaper that discusses how a brand can effectively support front line staff and help them go from good to great.

Location Engagement whitepaper – Section 3 “Helping Location Managers Go From Good to Great”

Locations need the ability to take ownership of their customer experience management program in order to make it successful.

There have been tremendous innovations in the area of customer experience management as programs begin to adapt to new consumer behaviors. Some of the elements to consider when evaluating a new program, or enhancements to the location layer of a program should include:

• Simple, clear information
  Location managers are busy people with many demands on their time. They need answers and focused directions, not more work. These busy professionals need tools to help surface only the information critical to them and to present it in a way that makes sense to them. In thirty seconds a manager should be able to tell exactly what they are supposed to be doing, what their staff should be doing, and get feedback from their customers on whether it is happening. In two minutes they should be able to get more detail on the execution plan and guidance on any issues that are occurring.
• Select and align each location with specific top priorities
  Location managers are not data analysts – they do not have the time or training to become one. Look for customer experience tools that provide algorithms to analyze the data and deliver insights so that they don’t have to. These tools can provide specific focus areas and clear target objectives. This allows location managers to spend their time executing on the priorities rather than trying to determine what they should be.
• Editable action plans to execute behavior change
  Knowing what area of the customer experience that needs to improve is the beginning, not the end, of a successful customer experience program. If the front line staff does not adjust their behavior then the customer experience will not improve. The primary role of the location manager in the customer experience program should be to coach and motivate the front line staff to drive behavioral change that will benefit the customer. Period. Location managers need the knowledge and the tools to execute behavioral change. Tools should be designed to present an action plan based on best practices for their specific focus areas, along with the flexibility for location managers to edit and adapt this plan to their own needs.
• Social sharing of best practices
  Locations should be able to learn what actions have been successful in other locations with similar issues. Best practice libraries are living online resources that can adapt to the real world. Location managers (and their regional managers) can use these tools to contribute new actions and give feedback on which actions work well and which do not.
• Status monitoring to track progress
  Locations need an easy way to track their overall progress as well as the execution of specific staff behavior. In thirty seconds location focused tools should be able to tell a manager exactly what the staff is successfully executing on and not. This enables data-driven conversations based on real customer insights.

To learn how to engage location managers to consistently deliver great customer experiences, download the Empathica whitepaper “Location Engagement Doesn’t Come from Reading Reports.”

Download Whitepaper

This entry was posted in Featured Resource What Do I Need to Consider When Choosing a Vendor and assigned these Tags: active advocacy, advocacy management, CEM, customer experience insights, customer experience management, employee engagement, location managers, location reports. Bookmark the permalink